ARTICLES ABOUT ROAD RAGE BY DATE - PAGE 4

An appeals court has rejected the claims of a man who said closing arguments made by DuPage County prosecutors in his road rage murder trial were prejudicial, State's Attorney Robert Berlin said today. The three-judge panel of the 2nd appellate district affirmed the conviction of Jesus Rodriguez, 54, for the murder of John Spoors of Addison. On Aug, 29, 1981, Rodriguez become embroiled in a road rage incident in Addison with the driver of a second vehicle in which Spoors was a passenger, according to authorities Rodriguez tailed the men to a gas station, and, armed with a pistol, confronted them.

A 41-year-old man yelled racial epithets and used his car to repeatedly cut off a woman driving with her son in Riverside this week, authorities said today while announcing charges. Alexander M. Borrego, of the 8700 block of Lyons Street in Hodgkins, was charged with assault and reckless driving for the Sunday attack on the 3400 block of First Avenue in Riverside, according to a news release from the Riverside Police Department. The victims said Borrego drove up next to their car and for no reason began yelling racial slurs and spitting at them, and then used his car to repeatedly cut them off as they tried to drive away, police said.

Two men were shot, one critically, Monday in what Chicago police said appeared to be a road rage incident. The shooting is believed to have occurred about 12:20 a.m. in the 6100 block of West Fullerton Avenue in the Belmont Central neighborhood, police said. The men, ages 23 and 33, were passengers in a car that somehow became involved in a running altercation with another motorist, according to authorities. Their car was driven by a 21-year-old woman. Police didn't immediately know how the disturbance began but said one of the cars began cutting off the other in traffic as they traveled west on Fullerton.

As they stood on the campus of the University of Chicago, hands speckled with spray paint, friends of Mandeep Bedi knew they were remembering him in a way he would have appreciated. Bedi, 23, a former Naperville resident who died Aug. 25, six days after a hit-and-run road rage incident, was fascinated with graffiti and how people use it to express themselves. At an organized event Sept. 1, friends and others at the university where he studied and worked sprayed makeshift walls with messages and artwork to memorialize a man who police said was killed while trying to come to the aid of his wife.

Lombard police said a one-vehicle accident that occurred shortly after 7 a.m. today on North Avenue was related to an incidence of road rage. The SUV -- a Land Rover - - was traveling east near Ridge Avenue. “There was an altercation with another car that pulled in front of the vehicle, slammed on its brakes and then the Land Rover swerved and went into a barrel roll,” said Sgt. Paul Nevara of the Lombard Police Department. He said police were able to talk to some of the five people who were in the vehicle that crashed.

A Naperville man who was run down last week in a road rage incident in Chicago's Washington Park neighborhood has died, officials said today. Mandeep Bedi, 23, was riding in a car driven by his wife last Friday when she got into an argument with a woman in another car, police sources said. It's not clear what sparked the argument as their two cars traveled on Prairie Avenue. As the two cars turned east on Garfield Boulevard, they both stopped, according to police. Bedi and his 21-year-old wife got out of their car. He walked up to the passenger side of the other car while his wife approached the driver's side, police said.

Are the roads wide enough for both? If you've had it with cyclists who blow off stop signs or car drivers who hog the road, don't miss Thursday's Chicago Live show at Chicago Theater. Here's the note I just got from Chicago Live executive producer, Lara Weber: Hey Julie, I wanted to make sure you and your readers were in on what promises to be a great segment at this Thursday's Chicago Live! (that's the weekly stage and radio show the Tribune produces over at Chicago Theatre)

The Wisconsin man who killed a fellow trucker on the side of the Edens Expressway after the two sparred over their CB radios and cut each off in traffic was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday. David Seddon apologized in the Skokie courtroom to the victim's family, who appealed for the maximum sentence of 60 years for the Jan. 15 road rage attack, in which Seddon stabbed Alan Lauritzen to death near Northbrook. Lauritzen's widow, Lauren, tearfully told Seddon during the hearing that "you have taken my best friend, my soul mate.

A Wisconsin man who said he "felt antagonized" by a fellow trucker before stabbing him to death on the side of the Edens Expressway could spend the rest of his life behind bars. David Seddon, 49, who admitted to knifing Alan Lauritzen in a fit of road rage that he claimed was in self-defense, was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday in Cook County and faces up to 60 years in prison. For miles along the Edens on Jan. 15, authorities said, the two truckers jockeyed for position, cutting each other off and quarreling via their CB radios before one of them yelled "Let's do it!"